On Wednesday 10 February 2010 06:20:38 Rupert Horstkötter wrote:
What do you think about Remy's solution?
It is one of possible views of wiki web site and IMO, it is better then 2 levels of endless NavBars. I often quote http://useit.com and they found that lists are the most effective way to communicate message to visitor, but well visible inline linking, as NavBar does, with limited number of items (up to 7) is next to lists. The other option is to combine use of NavBar, that will provide extended functionality of the sidebar (menu on left side of the wiki page). Example is: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Moderator that has {{h:h|MediaWiki links}} template on the top, that is the same as our NavBar. As you can see it is a list (index) of the articles that should help moderators (sysops, administrators). When I select from that list System message I land on page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:System_message and there you can see the same {{h:h|MediaWiki links}} template. That way user can go back to main index for that or some other group with just one click. Important is to note that in Wikimedia example, between navigational bar and article is only one index, because they have tree that has only main index (presented in their equivalent of NavBar) + one branch that is presented as index. If there is need for 3 levels branching, and as you can see from Remy's example there will be, then we have to rethink how we use sidebar. Currently there is: Project Overview How to Participate Documentation Support Support Database Contact Sitemap I created: http://en.opensuse.org/Support and linked it to Support link in sidebar, where before was only link to Communicate page. We offer far more support then few communication channels. It is just that we don't advertise that enough :) The page is work in progress [1], but "Support" page will benefit from layout and content cleanup, or add on. It is result of just one evening effort, so anyone with ideas can jump in, preferably here, or in forums. The same principle can be used for Project Overview, link that can include: 1) About: "The openSUSE project is a worldwide ..." from main page, 2) Links to contact information (extended with links to board, boosters, teams contact info) 3) Guiding principles 4) Link to Legal page 5) Link to infrastructure 6) Link to "Site map" ie, category structure (which is another possible view of web site) 7) Link to "How to participate" That way sidebar will look like: Project Overview Community Support ---- Documentation [2] Download [3] Sitemap Giving room for many more direct links that will solve 3 levels branching tree structure. 1) First level is Sidebar below dashed line ---- 2) Second level Navigational Bars on each page in the group. [4] 3) Third level indexes to articles. The 2) and 3) will be the same way as in Wikimedia example. *** [1] whole world wide web is work in progress and telling that explicitly is superfluous, specially on wiki web site. [2] - it is repeating link from support, but people that come back will look for documentation - besides it should be our priority to point people to resources that are lesser labor intensive then forum, email, IRC. [3] - this is the link to http://en.opensuse.org/Download , which is essentially the same as Get Software, but, get software is original openSUSE naming and as many original things fails by users that look for familiar link from other sites called "download". [4] - we will need ready to go templates for each group based on existing Article template, with main category of that group, and the most important links from any possible corner to this templates to make sure that people willing to contribute will see where to start. -- Regards Rajko, openSUSE Wiki Team: http://en.opensuse.org/Wiki_Team People of openSUSE: http://en.opensuse.org/People_of_openSUSE/About -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org